US Neo-Nazi group's leader is black man

Associated Press (March 2, 2019); Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Wisdom Quarterly

Fule photo, Jeff Schoep, second right in business suit, commander of the National Socialist Movement, leave under police protection after a rally against illegal immigration in Pomona, Calif. One of the largest and oldest neo-Nazi groups in the U.S. appears to have an unlikely new leader: James Stern, a black activist who has vowed to dismantle it. Michigan corporate records indicate Stern replaced Jeff Schoep as the Detroit-based group's leader in January. Stern and Schoep didn't respond to requests for comment. (Thomas R. Cordova/The Orange County Register via AP)

Neo-Nazi group's leader is black man

Neo-Nazi group's new leader, James Stern

One of the nation's largest neo-Nazi groups appears to have an unlikely new leader: a black activist who has vowed to dismantle it.

Court documents filed Thursday suggest that James Hart Stern wants to use his new position as director and president of the National Socialist Movement to undermine the Detroit-based group's defense against a lawsuit.

The NSM is one of several extremist groups sued over bloodshed at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Stern's filing asks a federal court in Virginia to issue a judgment against the group before one of the lawsuits goes to trial.

Stern replaced Jeff Schoep as the group's leader in January, according to Michigan corporate records. But those records and court documents say nothing about how or why Stern got the position. His feat invited comparisons to the recent Spike Lee movie "BlacKkKlansman" in which a black police officer infiltrates a branch of the Ku Klux Klan.

Neither Stern, who lives in Moreno Valley, California, nor Schoep responded Thursday to emails and calls seeking comment. Matthew Heimbach, a leading white nationalist figure who briefly served as the NSM's community outreach director last year, said Schoep and other group leaders have been at odds with rank-and-file members over its direction.

Heimbach said some members "essentially want it to remain a politically impotent white supremacist gang" and resisted ideological changes advocated by Schoep.

Heimbach said Schoep's apparent departure and Stern's installation as its leader probably spell the end of the group in its current form. Schoep was 21 when he took control of the group in 1994 and renamed it the National Socialist Movement, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. More